


You Were Worth the Wait

by BekkaChaos



Series: Gallavich Drabbles [131]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Gallavich, M/M, Mickey Uses His Words, Secret Santa, talking it out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-03 05:45:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2840186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BekkaChaos/pseuds/BekkaChaos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i><b>based on a secret santa prompt:</b> Ian goes to the bathroom and finds the photo of him hidden in the magazine and so he confronts Mickey about it and it leads to a painful heart to heart on just how much they both missed each other after Ian left. ofc it ends with a lot of fluff though.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Were Worth the Wait

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mickxymilkovich](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=mickxymilkovich).



It’s been a long few years for the two of them. Who would have thought that they’d make it this far after the rocky history they’d endured? Mickey was the last one to have that thought.

Ian had hoped, even _lusted_ after the idea of a stable future, where he could actually call Mickey his boyfriend without being brutally shut down.

Neither of them expected it to go the way it did.

Mickey had a baby, Ian was bipolar, sometimes it seemed like things would never straighten out or go the way they wanted.

For now though, things had hit a plateau. They still hadn’t talked about anything, not really anyway. They just worked their way through it, arguing when things finally boiled their way to the surface.

Still, their relationship was better than it had ever been, even if they hadn’t talked through any of their issues. Ian often wondered if they ever would or if Mickey was just going to keep pushing him away when he tried to bring anything up.

For the most part he’d given up trying anyway.

On this day he was on another cleaning spree of the Milkovich house, he’d done it once or twice before and each time it got completely trashed again. Part of that was because there was a baby and the other part was because Mickey was a god damned slob.

He walked into the bedroom, grunting at the sight of the place.

“Jesus Mickey,” he mumbled to himself, the floor was scattered with clothes and empty boxes of cigarettes, beer bottles and old magazines and everything in between.

He gathered up most of the clothes and threw them out into the hall, grabbing a bin and starting on the trash. He shook his head and wondered why he even bothered when Mickey wouldn’t even fucking notice past the point of asking where all his shit went.

There were magazines on the floor that had been there for months, some of them must have been nearly a year old. Mickey wasn’t going to miss them.

As Ian collected them in one hand their pages flapped about and open, and on his third handful something came flying out and floated down to the floor.

He groaned because _of course_ cleaning the mess was only going to produce _more_ mess in this house. As he put the magazines up on the shelf and reached down to pick up the piece of paper he froze.

Staring up at him was a ridiculous picture of his own face… and his middle finger. He was younger, maybe by a year, and the picture itself seemed just as old. He thought about it for a moment and seemed to recall Mandy taking the picture on an old camera one of her brothers stole.

He knew she got some of them developed, and thought this must be one of them but this was in a magazine about firearms and ammunition, there was no way Mandy was the one hiding this photo. Besides, what need would she have to hide a picture of Ian?

It had creases on the corners, it wasn’t very well maintained but who ever said a photo had to be?

Ian quickly forgot about his cleaning and walked out into the living room where Mickey was trying to feed a fussy Yevgeny.

His brow was furrowed as he walked into the room and Mickey looked up at him.

“You alright?” he asked before looking back down at his son.

“Yeah… yeah I’m fine,” he said.

“So what’s wrong with your face?” he said with a grin, still looking down at his kid.

Ian didn’t say anything, he just held the photo as he stared over at Mickey, waiting for him to look up again.

As he face turned back to Ian and his eyes caught sight of the picture his face dropped and it seemed to lose its colour.

“The fuck’d you find that?” he asked defensively.

“You _did_ have it then,” Ian said.

“Can we not do this right fucking now?” he hissed.

“Why are you hiding a picture of me Mick?”

“Just not fuckin’ now, alright?” he said. “Can we do this later, please? I’m trying to deal with the fuckin’ kid.”

Ian sighed, “Yeah, sure, whatever.”

As Ian turned to walk back to the bedroom Mickey’s hand reached up to his face and he pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers. He knew this was going to happen, he knew Ian wanted to talk about things, he just didn’t want to deal with them.

Lately he has been trying to think of ways to tell Ian all the things that have been dancing around in his mind but he’s never been able to work up the nerve to do it. Maybe Ian finding the photo was exactly what they needed.

Still, it didn’t mean that he wasn’t sick to his stomach thinking about having to actually confront his feelings.

He finished feeding Yev and spent a good long while trying to get him to sleep before putting him down in his basinet.

He paced the room a little before finally deciding that he couldn’t put it off any longer, especially since he knew Ian would just be in there waiting for him.

When he opened the bedroom door he saw Ian sitting on the edge of the bed, the photo still between his fingers. The room was half clean from where Ian had been bustling about before and the magazines that he had kept the photo in were neatly placed on a shelf.

He stood in the doorway and leant against the frame, folding his arms and swallowing slowly.

“How long have you had this?” Ian asked.

Mickey shook his head a little, “Does that fuckin’ matter?”

“Yes it―” Ian sighed harshly. “No, you’re probably right, it doesn’t.”

“You think it matters? Why? Why would it?” Mickey asked. “So I got a picture of you, so what?”

“A picture you’re hiding? Kind of speaks volumes don’t you think?” he said.

Mickey grit his teeth and walked into the room to stand closer to Ian who still wasn’t looking at him.

“Yeah I got a picture of you, stole it off Mandy alright? Like she needs another fucking picture of your annoying face. Took it a while ago, before this thing turned into a fucking shit-show, okay? You happy now?” he said.

Ian scoffed a little, “You had this all that time?”

“That so hard to believe?” Mickey asked, shrugging and throwing his arms out to the side.

“I fucking missed you,” Ian said, looking up at him with glassy eyes. “You had this… you missed me too…”

“Yeah…” Mickey said softly.

“So why the fuck didn’t you try and stop me?” he said, eyes wide.

“I… You think I wanted you to go?” Mickey asked incredulously. “I never fucking told you to go.”

“That’s not answering the question Mick,” Ian said.

“What do you want me to say, huh? You want me to say it’s because I’m a fuckin’ pussy? Because I was scared of what was going to happen to me? I did try and stop you,” he snapped.

“What, one fucking word? That’s all you could say Mick, one fucking word and it wasn’t enough!”

“You came in here actin’ like you were leavin’ and then you were just fuckin’ gone, you didn’t give me time to―”

“Didn’t give you time?” Ian scoffed dubiously. “How many more times did you want me to come and find you and _beg_ you to tell me the truth? And what did you do?”

“Don’t…” Mickey said warningly.

“Exactly…” Ian said.

Mickey turned away from him putting his hand over his mouth and rubbing his thumb over his bottom lip. If there was ever a time to say something, it was now.

“You weren’t leavin’ all those other times, you never said you were goin’ anywhere,” he said.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t know that I wanted something more from you Mickey, and maybe I was wrong to try and force it out of you, but you never even tried to―”

“Oh I didn’t try?” Mickey said, turning back to Ian. “Don’t _fucking_ tell me I didn’t try.”

“You didn’t try to find a way out of it,” Ian clarified. “You just did everything you were fucking told, and just _watching_ it was painful enough… I’m not saying any of this right, I know… I just… I don’t know when you’re going to let me say anything again and I want to tell you fucking everything.”

Mickey looked down at his feet.

“Why did you take this picture?” he asked, this time looking up with his big soft doe eyes that made Mickey’s stomach flutter.

Mickey shrugged and Ian stood up to get closer to him.

“Mick, you can say _anything_ , okay? It’s just me…” he said, reaching out slowly to brush his fingertips against Mickey’s, taking it as a good sign when he didn’t pull away.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“You don’t have to―”

“I mean it, I don’t know why I took the stupid thing…” he said. “Stupid fucking idea really, guess I could have just said it was Mandy’s if anyone found it but… I don’t know, okay? I just didn’t have a fucking picture of you and after being in juvie… I didn’t forget your stupid face or anything, I just wanted to… I don’t know…”

“I really fucking missed you Mickey,” Ian said. “I mean the whole time I was trying to forget you but all that really did was make me think of you more.”

“Least you knew where I’d fuckin’ be,” Mickey said, reaching a hand out to grab Ian’s shirt and ball it up in his fist. “You could have got your ass fuckin’ blown up for all I knew.”

“Never really thought we’d end up here though,” Ian said, the hint of a smile coming back to his face.

“I’m fuckin’ serious,” Mickey said and Ian raised an eyebrow.

“I know,” he said.

“You don’t know shit about missin’ a person ‘til you gotta spend every day wonderin’ if they’re alive or fuckin’ dead,” he said, jabbing Ian’s side with his fist a few times. “Mandy told me a few times when you sent her a fuckin’ message but otherwise… nothing.”

“I didn’t want to go, you know that don’t you?”

“Yeah, yeah I know, it’s my fuckin’ fault―” Mickey tried to pull himself away but Ian just pulled him back in even tighter than before.

“I’m not saying that!” Ian said. “Yeah, okay, I left because I didn’t want to watch you married to _her_ , but I know you didn’t want that either. You know you can… you can talk to me about that too if you want. I was there too.”

Mickey closed his eyes and felt Ian’s arms circle around him. It was partly because he needed him to know that he wasn’t letting go again, and partly because he knew Mickey was inches away from pulling himself back.

“Not… don’t want to talk about that,” he said and Ian just nodded. “I uh… I didn’t want you to go, for what it’s fuckin’ worth. I know it probably don’t mean shit now―”

“No…” Ian said softly. “No it means… thanks.”

“You were the only thing that… that I… _fuck_ …” Mickey mumbled, trying to avoid looking up and into Ian’s eyes. “Nothing else meant shit.”

“So why didn’t you stop the wedding?” Ian asked. “I know, you hated me bringing it up before but―”

“You think my dad would’a stopped at me if I backed out of that? You think he wouldn’t have come the fuck after you to teach me a fuckin’ lesson?” Mickey said. “Doesn’t matter anyway, like I said nothing else meant shit. That’s still true.”

“Can you try and do something for me?” Ian asked and he felt Mickey’s whole body sigh as he looked up. “Oh come on, I’m not going to ask the world of you.”

“You got a habit of doin’ it,” Mickey said and Ian’s smile was quickly coming back.

“Can you just not shut me down when I try to talk to you about something? I don’t want to keep doing it like this.”

“You know that’s what I do,” Mickey said. “But I’ll try and use my fuckin’ brain before I use my mouth if that makes you feel better,” he said after Ian pulled a face.

“Well it’d be a first so I guess we’ll just have to see how it goes,” he said with a smile.

“Yeah, yeah, smart ass,” Ian leant in to catch Mickey’s lips with his own and Mickey closed his eyes, fading into the moment before Ian was pulling away. “Can I have my picture back then?” he asked.

“What do you need a picture for when you’ve got me here basically all the time?” Ian said.

Mickey shrugged. “You we’re a lot sexier when you were younger.”

Ian laughed, “Oh is that how it’s going to be?”

“I like the fucking picture, that okay with you?” he asked and Ian dragged them down to the bed, pinning Mickey under him and running a hand gently through his dark hair.

“Definitely,” he said, cupping his jaw before planting another kiss against his lips. “But I’m going to need one of you, makes it even.”

“I don’t take stupid pictures,” Mickey said, his hands slipping under Ian’s shirt to caress his bare skin.

“I’ll teach you,” Ian said.

“I ain’t photogenic,” he grumbled and Ian laughed.

“Are you kidding?”

“What?”

Ian smiled down at his boyfriend, admiring the pretty lines of his face and his stunning eyes. He was right when he’d said he never would have imagined the two of them like this.

“I love you,” he said in barely a whisper and he felt Mickey tense up. “And I know you love me, even if you can’t say it right now. I know you do.”

Mickey nodded silently, leaning his face against the palm of Ian’s hand that was still brushing through his hair.

“Don’t fucking leave again, alright?” he murmured.

“I won't,” he said, and while it took a little longer to get those three words out of Mickey’s mouth, he was more than worth the wait.


End file.
